Judge: "Demands of the digital age will…require further refinement of…criminal laws."

Further Reading

The New York State Supreme Court has overturned the second conviction of Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer accused of stealing high-frequency trading source code after leaving Goldman Sachs in 2009.

The Russian-American programmer, who was featured in the book Flash Boys, was previously convicted in federal court in 2010 on one count of stealing trade secrets and one count of transporting stolen property.

He was released from prison when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the conviction in 2012. The appeals court wrote that Aleynikov did not steal anything physical when copying the source code, because it was done over the Internet and did not violate the National Stolen Property Act.

The New York Supreme Court largely agreed with the federal appellate court, finding:

Defendants cannot be convicted of crimes because we believe as a matter of policy that their conduct warrants prosecution. We cannot ignore key terms like "tangible" and "appropriate" because they make it impossible to convict someone we believe engaged in wrongdoing. The demands of the digital age will doubtless require further refinement of our criminal laws. But it is the job of the courts to apply the laws that exist. For all of those reasons, Defendant's motion for a trial order of dismissal with respect to counts one and two of the indictment is granted.

The New York Times noted that prosecutors may appeal the decision further. Despite the New York Supreme Court’s confusing name, it is not the court of last resort—that distinction goes to the New York Court of Appeals.

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar